Striking the right chord in cybersecurity

https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/striking-the-right-chord-in-cybersecurity

Publish Date: 2026-06-26 03:43:00

A pivot from a career in a rock band to cybersecurity may not be a conventional career path, but it shows how Toby Wilmington, Co-Founder and CEO of Periphery, has always gone against the grain.

However, his unquenchable curiosity about understanding how things work, including building computers and getting to grips with software, has translated well into a career in cybersecurity, which requires an inquisitive mind and a knack for technology.

Wilmington explained that, while playing in a rock band, having children required him to look at potential careers that would help him support his family – noting that income in the music industry is not always “reliable”.

“I became a Microsoft certified engineer, I did a few networking courses,” said Wilmington. “I was self taught. But then I also did some of the certifications in networking and computing. I never went to university, I did this all on the job, but fundamentally [it was] the path to security.”

At that time, security was viewed as the responsibility of the IT team, which has since undergone a paradigm shift: companies recognise the importance of distributing these responsibilities and having security-literate employees. If an employee isn’t taught how to recognise a phishing email and unwittingly clicks on what they believe to be a communication from their boss, they potentially open up their company’s system to threat actors, and the fallout can be immense.

The threats have evolved too. “We had worms and Trojans and early malware and things like this,” said Wilmington, referring to when he started out. “You started to see a little bit of phishing, but it was more like adware. The start of common cyber threats, I’d say.”

Wilmington helped a team build out Google Translate and led the engineering team; went to BAE Systems to build security capabilities for enterprises where he met his co-founders, Kane Ryans, who is the CTO of Periphery, and Adam Massey, Chief Security Officer,…

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